Field emission devices, including edge electron emitters, are known in the art. Unlike Spindt-tip field emitters, edge emitters are simpler to make and eliminate problems such as electrical shorts between emitter tip and grid, too much grid current, deteriorating tips, and exploding tips.
Prior art substrates for Spindt-tip field emitters and existing edge emitters are formed from glass or silicon. A glass substrate for an array of edge emitters is configured by employing a sawing process. The sawing process limits the dimensions of the features of the substrate. It may also introduce non-uniformities due to wear on the saw blade.
Accordingly, there exists a need for an improved method for fabricating a substrate for an array of edge electron emitters which is simple to perform, allows the formation of features having smaller dimensions than those permitted by sawing technology, and results in uniform dimensions over the array.